mattpeckham

This got it working for me, except you can skip the first two steps. Thus: 1. Install the full-version beta 2. 2. Run the beta 2 patch. 3. Run the beta 3 patch.

I know it's not modeled in the BS, but as an RL rookie pre-pilot working on his private aviator's license, you learn there's upwards of 15-20 minutes exterior inspection work (say in a Cessna 172B) running through particulars like eyeballing rivet integrity and poking "shot glasses" under the wings to check for inappropriate separation in fuel mix. Anyone know how elaborate these procedures are and how long they take in something like a Kamov? Are they 100% handled by the ground crew? Or does the pilot have a role in any of it?

Confirming this bug. Another way to trigger it is if you hit ESC to pause the sim then ESC again, you'll hear very loud audio, but if you then hit F2 for external view, then F1 to slip back into the cockpit, everything is (correctly?) muffled.

I'm losing my groundspeed in the HUD at startup too. How do you calibrate this properly again?

Radiotechniczny System Bliskiej Nawigacji (RSBN) Soviet-designed navigational aid? (And yes, I have no idea what that is either.)

I know it's blasphemous to suggest this, but you guys ought to consider licensing the salient bits of the engine to someone with a decent track record to put the arcade face of BS with perhaps a more dramatically developed (narratively speaking) storyline on one or more of the current consoles. You've seen this, right? Similar idea, I think. :)

Another thing: I try to analyze these sorts of games without benchmarking them too rigidly against past or hypothetical future ones. It may be that a dynamic campaign worked well in Game X, but that doesn't mean "dynamic campaigns" as a design principle are this cumulative feature that every game or sim ought to be striving toward. I can even see the value of excluding a dynamic campaign if your design goals are iterative, or "staged," as in BS's campaign. Sure, that might mean it won't always appeal to someone who wants to bury themselves in a drawn-out, dynamic event. But that may just be a player/game mismatch, not necessarily a violation of the sim's internal grammar.

Red Tiger's got it precisely right. Dynamic campaigns in general are hugely overrated and gamey, and not necessarily more difficult. Think of Black Shark more like Combat Mission (also lacking a dynamic campaign, or if memory serves, any sort of campaign system whatsoever). CM's focus was on tactical fidelity in the ASL vein. BS's focus is on avionic and aeronautical fidelity in the military-simulation vein. Both games have a kind of asymmetric structure. I'm still working my way through flight school, so no opinion to share on the ground-based unit AI, but as long as it's basically competent, I'll be happy. Half to three-quarters of the work in real life flying this sort of helo is pre-planning and more micro-strategic than tactical reactivity anyway. I'm hoping a sizable number of the missions also model the helo's priority as a battlefield surveillance and infantry/armor information relay tool. I don't recall Hollis's Longbow and Longbow 2 having all that brilliant ground unit AI, though the dynamic campaign generator was pretty fancy, for all that word's worth in late 1990s context.

Or in my case, new-wannabe-pilot. :helpsmilie:

Yep, we both mean the same thing, just slightly altered semantics. ;)

Nope, cyclic. "Physical" cyclic = real-world joystick, ergo the joystick's throttle. :)

So I was practicing my startup procedures this morning, and...well... Ladies and gentlemen, always start with your physical cyclic's throttle at idle, not maximum. :doh:

I haven't vetted every last one, but all the training missions seem to be automated, while many of the actual missions have the Ka-50 revved and rocking. Any in particular you guys are using to freeform practice going through preflight and powerup, and then to practice spinning around sandbox-style?

19" LG W1952TQ @ 1440 x 900. I need the extra desk space, plus 1440 x 900 = "no frame left behind."

Sim only, not that I'm competent to play at that level. Yet.